I realize as I am here in Japan that the secret to learning Japanese Kanji is what I call “flight time”. Pilots can learn to fly pretty quickly, but they still need a lot of exposure and practice in a real plane before they can earn a license. In the same way, I realize that although I can memorize Kanji, meanings, readings and so on, in practice I still read too slow, or get confused by compound words I’ve never seen before.
For example, a couple days ago, I was at the train station with my wife, and I saw a place called 立川. Now, I know that 立 can be read as either ritsu (the “on yomi”), or as the verbs tatsu (to stand up), or tateru (to stand something up) among other things. Both are the “kun yomi”. For 川, this can be read as sen (the “on yomi”) or as kawa (the “kun yomi”). So with this many possibilties, how can I know for sure what the correct combination is?
The answer is that you can’t always know for sure. You just have to be exposed to the word, and see how Japanese read it. Exposure is the key. The more you’re exposed to Japanese, the more you’ll just know these things. The word above, by the way, is a place called Tachikawa. So, unless you knew that, you may not be able to infer correctly.
You definitely have to memorize the different kanji, their meanings and readings and such, but once you’ve passed that hurdle, a lot of it is just time, patience and exposure.
Namuamidabu
Hello, this blog is about my life as a father, Buddhist and Japanophile / Koreaphile. Any useful information I can pass along will hopefully make the 
“The answer is that you can’t always know for sure. “
Ain’t that the truth! Though generally a Kanji on its own is read kun yomi. But then you get into surnames and that throws that general rule right out the window. Sigh…
Hope you and your family are enjoying Japan.
Yeah, I think it’s all about exposure. Back in graduate school, I sat in on a psychology class with a professor who showed that you can actually learn a lot by paying attention for some time interval and then not paying attention for the same time interval. So she was pushing the idea that it’s more about experience than conscious effort. Think of this like studying an article about a Japanese movie for 30 minutes and then watching this movie with the Japanese subtitles turned on. If you get good sleep and do this again the next day, you supposedly learn just as well (if not better) than if you studied for an hour straight both days with no movie. I think this is pretty cool. It’s a great excuse to rent more movies too.
Jeannie: Yeah, I keep seeing random exceptions to the rule. Being here for 10 days reminds me how much of it is kind of tribal knowledge. It can definitely be learned; it’s not esoteric, but you really need the exposure. Textbooks only convey so much.
Arun: That’s a very interesting anecdote, and does seem to confirm this idea of exposure. I noticed that in a way Kanji are naturally more visually oriented, being pictographs and such, than romanized letters, so you definitely need to see it a lot. If you see the kanji 月 (getsu, gatsu; tsuki; moon) 5 times, you might remember it, you might not. If you see it 10 times, you might remember it more easily. If you see it fifty times, you definitely start to internalize it. After 100,200 or more, well, you get the idea.
Reminds me of when I lived in Japan. At first, I had to equate the kanji characters with pictures or cartoons in order for me to remember what they looked like. Shinagawa was always easy to identify (three boxes and three lines) but something like Yokosuka was a little more tricky (a skinny man standing next to a fat man, watching tv while supper is cooking on the stove).
I’ve spent some years off and on (mostly off) trying to learn Japanese as I was born there, but only stayed a couple years. I know my lack of real experience is one pitfall. I have some manga, anime, music, etc. that are in Japanese to help me retain what I learn once I get there, but still not very close. I find Kanji particularly difficult at times for the same reasons as you, though I’ve gotten better at remembering what the pictogram represents. Like the 川 kanji I remember represents a river, so that gives me a clue to the word meaning, though know help with the pronunciation.
I do like how you incorporate some kanji in your posts at times. It was one of the reasons I added your blog to my RSS list. It gives me just a little bit more exposure while also reading about something I like. So I’m all for you using kanji in posts.
More on topic though, when I use to practice Kung Fu my teacher taught us that after performing a form (a formal set moves) 500 times it would be very hard to ever forget, and frankly it was true. Even 10+ years later I can remember how to do a 60 move form, more or less anyways. The form adds moves the farther along you make your way your teaching, so the later parts I may not have done a full 500 times. So the idea of your post does not only hold true for book knowledge, but also physical practices. So meditation falls under this as well.
Thanks for your comment on my blog. I know this is unrelated to this particular post, but you practice Buddhism and you have a kid. Are there any particular works or writings you would suggest on raising children from a Buddhist perspective?
Hi Chasing,
It’s funny you should ask. I talked about this topic on the blog a couple times, particularly here:
http://level8.wordpress.com/2008/10/20/raising-buddhist-children/
I’d like to hear your thoughts too on Buddhist parenting as well. Cheers!
TennZen: Absolutely hilarious! I loved the Yokosuka analogy, so I looked it up and you’re right, it does look like a fat man and skinny man. When I was in high school we had a course in Mandarin, which included things like learning the radicals, stroke order and such, so that’s helped a lot even though the languages are otherwise completely different (Japanese uses Chinese characters, but is an entirely different language family).
Kendall: Excellent anecdotes. I did a little martial arts before Baby was born, and they talked alot about “muscle memory” which sounds like the same thing. I also really liked how you tied it back into meditation. I never thought of it that way before, so you really got me thinking on the subject. Thanks very much!